Year 2, Day 333 & 334: On the Mend, Sort Of

I still have the itchy, watery eyes, which made it difficult to drive to gymnastics and back, but we did it.  Abishai behaved perfectly while there! He stayed off the equipment, but had fun jumping on the bouncy floor near where the parents sit.  I tried to stay away from others because I was still blowing my nose often.  But the new symptom of nauseousness has hit me.  Ugh.  I can still work a bit, and we've caught up on school and making progress towards the busy weekend ahead.

All the kids came back from the dentist with a clean bill of health, yeah!  Praise the Lord that Jared has a very flexible job so we can tag team like we have yesterday and today.  I know it can be frustrating to him to take time off of work, but when the Grandma goes on vacation, it's necessary so life can happen like dental appointments.  The children have also been flexible both with my sickness and being on the go this week and have worked diligently on their school work.  Tomorrow we will be home all day and can truly catch up on things like history and writing.  And we've made it to payday with a little money left in the bank.  Woot! Woot!

So after feeling crummy for two weeks and having Satan's minions on my case, my spirits are up today, despite the yucky stomach.  It also helps that my favorite DC comic book superhero TV shows are having their annual "crossover" event where the characters show up on each other's shows.  It's one story arc, so if you watch all 4 shows back to back, it would be a 3 hr movie.  I know it was a ton of hard work to pull that off because I watched the social media of some of the actors as they were shooting it a few weeks ago.  They film all within the Vancouver, Canada area, but they also brought in previous characters, which means they flew in actors that have moved on and film elsewhere.  Anyway, I highly anticipated these particular episodes and they are definitely epic in nature.  Since we are trying to not spend money, we haven't gone to see Thor: Ragnorak or Justice League, and it's been hard staying put after watching the filming and pictures and trailers and teasers from these movies trickle out on social media over the last couple of years.  We hope to see them over Christmas break or in the cheaper theater.

Anyway, in other news, Abishai was totally cute when he packed up his own back pack of toys and wanted to wear it out to the car over his big winter coat.  Then he placed it next to his chair in the van, as well as putting his light saber in his cup holder.  When we got to gymnastics, he put the back pack on again to go inside.  Then he took off the back pack, the coat, the hat, his socks and his shoes, all by himself.  And when it was time to leave, he packed it all up again, bringing me his socks and shoes.  We get home and he neatly put his socks in his shoes and lined them up.  He's so smart and so verbal.  And I know that watching certain TV shoes on YouTube has helped that.  In days gone by, him learning things from something like TV would make me feel guilty that I haven't spent the time to teach him.  But now, I'm just grateful he has many teachers and we can reinforce anything he learns from anywhere else.   His creative play is through the roof because he watches a show that does just that.  In bed this morning, he was very tender and gave me lots of pat pats, as I had my back to him.  He likes to grab my hand and put it on his face for comfort.  He also played the "tickle spider" game in reverse where he was the spider walking across my arm and I was to squish it.  And this boy is in a growth spurt because he's super hungry!  He ate a small bowl of chex, then cherrios, then chocolate grahm crackers, all with a little milk.  Then he asked for a Larabar at gymnastics about 1 1/2 hrs later.  Oh, and he had a yougurt pouch, too, and some fruit for breakfast.  He ate a little bit at lunch at noon but finished his chicken nuggets at 2 pm right before his naptime.  His clothes are fitting better as well and not falling off him as much.  Next week, we are going to work on potty training, practicing with the pull ups and underwear I bought.  And we will practice sitting on the potty and just get into the routine of it all.  I'll be rewarding him with MM's like I did the other kids.  So, yes, I'm that mom that bribes with candy and uses pull ups because I don't know how else to do it.  Since he's a quick learner, hopefully this won't take too long.  But he's almost 3 and we need to get into the habit at the very least.

The next day - Update - Do I have the flu? It is quite possible that I do.  But what can I do about it?  Definitely not sleep as much as I want to.  I just have to mutter through.  And when I did get a nap, I slept hard but fitfully and had a really weird dream that involved life sized stuffed animals, an aerospace project, playing games at a museum or arcade, winning tokens, redeeming tokens, and Abishai swallowing the prize.  Oh yeah, and there was a 3 story set of stairs in the middle of a mall where you went up to meet Santa like in "A Christmas Story."  All of this was from conversations in the last week, so I'm not surprised it came up during this nap.  Anyway, the show must go on, and it has.  School, work, shopping for groceries, renting a video game for $0.16, playing said video game until after bedtime, etc. etc. We've got a jam packed weekend so I really don't have time to deal with the flu, and yet I am.  Sigh. If it's not one thing healthwise, it's something else, isn't it? Oh well, tomorrow is a new month, December, so hopefully things will brighten up a bit soon.

When you've got lots going on, it helps that you can do work and school on the go, at home, at the office, at your brother's school, etc etc.  Yes, both Keturah and Justin spent time time in the teacher's lounge at Benaiah's school on Wednesday because Benaiah needed to go to class in between the two trips to the dentist.  Yeah for homeschooling and working wherever there is a wifi connection!

When it gets cold outside, this is how we get our energy out.

Abishai wanted to help Benaiah with his math homework, so he set up his cars on the arm of the sofa to be counted.  Well, sort of.  Abishai was trying to get Benaiah's attention. 

The door to the closet was open, so Abishai randomly tried to hide there.

Ah, a peaceful moment in the homeschool day.  Wow! Then there was bickering and "Justin, change the video." But Abishai does want to be included so he colored.

Look, Mom, my toes can touch the bar under the table!  The "suet plus" box has colored pencils in it.

No picture, Mom.  But he did like playing with the nativity magnets we got last year from the nursery at church.

My newest companion.  And yes, since I'm the only one who uses it, I drink it straight from the bottle.  Why waste time washing out the cup!

The moon was big and gorgeous!

Jared thinks this is "redneck" but I'm just happy that HE wanted to put something decorative outside.  We used to put up a string of icicle lights on the porch of our Beech Grove house, but nothing in Charlottetown or the Condo.  I'm pretty happy with red and green outdoor lights and the "J" having it's own set of lights.

Justin got his 2DS XL today!  We had an "unboxing" party before dinner! I did take a really long video, too.  It's a big deal when you spend almost $200 on an electronic device for the first time.  Especially when the money is earned the hard way of reading books and writing reports all for $0.05 per read page!

Big brother enjoyed looking at the new features, too.

It's not every day that a Johnson gets a brand new electronic.  We usually just get hand me downs.  And check out that bright green and black case!

Aw, Keturah sat in Jared's lap tonight.  And the puppy keeps watch as always.

Abishai immediately wanted to play the new "pew pew" game from Daddy's shoulders.  Nowhere else would do.  It was Star Wars Battlefront II that just came out.  Jared would do a lot of the playing and then hand Abishai the controls so he could some shooting. And Abishai was very serious and kept telling Jared about the bad guys he was seeing, like he was a lockout scout or something.

Coming home to shiny lights after our grocery run.

It's not every day you get to see a fire truck at Aldi's.  I will refrain from telling you why they were called because it doesn't have to do with us.  But I did have to explain to Abishai why he couldn't go on it because it was actually "on duty" and "working."